Concepts

Slips

Reusable templates that turn tasks and data into an image, a printout — or an action.

Slips are Todebaran's most distinctive feature — and its most flexible. A slip is a reusable template you design on a small visual canvas by wiring blocks together. Resolving a slip produces a receipt-style document you can export as an image or print — and because a slip can run logic and reach out, executing one can also do things, not just show them.

You don't need a printer

Printing is only one of the things a slip can do. Every slip can be exported as an image, and a slip can also run purely to perform an action. The thermal-printer details live in their own section — Printing & thermal printers.

The canvas#

A slip is a little pipeline: you drop blocks onto a canvas and connect them. Blocks come in two kinds.

Output blocks shape what the slip produces — Text, Image, QR Code, HTML, a Website screenshot, separators, spacing, and a paper Cut.
Helper nodes feed those outputs with data and logic — a Task node (your task's own fields as variables), an AI Prompt, Constants, Random values, Conditionals, a JSON parser, and JavaScript and Shell blocks that run code.

An output from one block becomes a {{variable}} you can drop into blocks downstream. For the complete catalog, see the Slip blocks reference.

More than printing#

Two things make a slip useful even if you never own a printer:

Export as an image. From a slip's preview you can export the result as an image and use it however you like — save it, share it, drop it somewhere.
Run actions. Resolving a slip actually executes its blocks: a Shell command runs, a snippet of JavaScript runs, a Website block loads and screenshots a URL, an AI Prompt calls your model, an image is generated. So a slip can be a small automation — fetch live data, hit an endpoint, run a script — and then print, export, or simply do the work.

Code blocks run on your Mac

The JavaScript and Shell blocks execute real code on your computer when a slip resolves. Only run slips you built or trust.

Slips and tasks#

Slips connect back to your tasks in a few ways:

Attach a slip to a task, so acting on that task uses your template.
Set one slip as the default for tasks, used whenever a task has none of its own.
Run on complete — a task with a slip runs it the moment you complete the task. Because a slip can perform actions, this turns "complete a task" into "do a thing": print a ticket, run a script, log somewhere.
Generate a task from a slip, pre-attached and ready.

Because a slip is a reusable template, you can save one out as a file and bring it back — into another folder, or onto another Mac. (This is different from exporting the result as an image, above: that's a finished picture, not a reusable template.)

Export — select a slip and press ⌘E (or Export from its menu) to save it as a .json file. This captures the whole design — every block, its wiring and its settings — but not where the slip sat in your folders.
Import — choose Import Slip from the slip list's folder menu, or drag .json files onto the slip list (you'll see Drop JSON to import). Each file becomes a new slip, and you can bring in several at once.

Images travel by reference

If a slip uses an image from your file library, the export points at that file rather than baking it in — so an imported slip shows the image only when that file is present (it is on your own synced Macs). Images from a URL or generated by AI always come through.

Slip history#

Every time a slip runs, the result is saved to Slip History, so you can reopen exactly what it produced without running it again.

Where to go next#

Building a slip — design one step by step.
Slip blocks reference — every block and node in detail.
Printing & thermal printers — send a slip to a receipt printer.